You may recall from a previous post that I have a ridiculously enormous dead tree in my front yard. Up to now, it’s been mainly an eyesore and a bit of a nuisance when little limbs fall into the yard and have to be hauled to the street. In my open letter to the Huge Dead Tree, I made some requests and did a little pleading. Maybe a tiny threat. It turns out my requests weren’t specific enough. I should have said, “Huge Dead Tree, you are welcome to drop limbs. Small limbs, no longer than I am tall, and weighing significantly less. Also, if you must drop a giant limb that weighs as much as and is probably as tall as most normal trees, I have a very specific arm in mind. One that will land in the middle of my front yard and cause a big mess, but nothing more than an irritation and further eyesoreness. Also, I probably should have specifically requested that the Dead Tree not damage any of our property, including (but not limited to) anything that would require an electrician to fix.

We all know my threats to cut down the tree were basically idle, until such point as my disposable income was enough to cover the cost and leave us enough to buy a new transmission (because that will inevitably happen, even though the transmissions in both cars are no more than a year old each), which would probably have been close to never. So I genuinely hope the Dead Tree wasn’t retaliating to my threats by doing what it did.

Naughty, naughty Dead Tree lost about six hundred pounds yesterday by dropping its most gigantic arm right onto the power line connecting my house to the pole. This caused the cables to yank out of their normal positions and some regularly straight piping to bend into an L.

Obviously, this killed the power to my house. Unfortunately, it also killed power to the rest of the neighborhood. I felt bad enough having a dead tree for everyone to look at, now my dead tree has caused hours of powerlessness for them as well.

The power company took down the line and restored everyone else’s power and told me, as kindly as he could, that I was going to have to hire an electrician to fix the pipe and cables attached to the house before my power could be reconnected. Also, it would have to be inspected to make sure it was up to code. It was immediately clear this was going to be an extensive and expensive project. Potentially more expensive than if we’d just cut down Dead Tree a long time ago. The only problem is, we didn’t have the money before, and we barely have it now, so basically, this tree limb fell at the earliest possible time we could have spent any money to cut the whole thing down. Thanks for that kick in the shins, Dead Tree.

I must shout out to newly named and high-spirited Friend-With-The-Worst-Wireless-Password-In-The-World (or FWTWWPITW). Just Kidding! We’ll call her Sassy Friend. Sassy Friend saved me last night by agreeing to let me sleep over, for which I will be eternally grateful. Almost as important to me as having air conditioning was having a wireless connection, which she also generously provided.

Now I just have to learn to deal with the fabulous subset of blue-collar workers known as electricians. So far only one I’ve talked with has had a basic understanding of the English Language and a pretty decent estimate but neglected to call me to let me know something else came up and he couldn’t come to the house before next week when he’d told me this morning he’d be out at the house first thing. Good thing I called him when I did to find out that he wasn’t coming so I could secure someone else to do the job…putting it four more hours behind schedule. I was trying to be funny in this post but I think it’s probably coming through that I’ve about had it up to my frontal lobe with this entire situation and would like to get my hands around the neck of any electrician I can find. Or else just cry.